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Monday, April 29, 2013

Are you ready for the onslaught of Stalk my Noms? As I was doing the holiday posts and other stuffs. The normal weekly posts got neglected. Soz and My Bad! I was just looking at the pictures that I have and thought - Gosh I eat out quite a bit!

There was a Saturday that I called the foodie day. We went out for dinner and lunch on the same day. It was like eat, eat, eat and eat day.

For lunch, we went to Chef Lagenda in Flemington with lovely Sew Me Love. I think when we went, it was her 4th weekend in a row. Yes.. she went back for the 5th. She just cannot stay away. I ordered Hainanese Chicken rice for the boys. And Mick and I shared Curry laksa and don't be grossed out by the top right picture of Ipoh Combination Hor Fun or in Cantonese "Wat Tan Hor". I once ordered that infront of someone really Aussie and "white meat only". She told me that us Chinese will eat anything with look of fear mixed with disgust.... it reminded her of this Survivor episode where this Chinese contestant blitz some weird eating challenge. Ok don't knock it till you try it. The boys topped the trip off by asking to go to the toilet 6 times between the two of them. Seriously!! I'm sick of toilet trips, back to the nappies please!

Salivating at Chef Lagenda

We went home with our takeaway Tiramisu from a cafe next door and proceeded to veg out and wait for our 6pm duck fest. Serious duck lovers need to get to Simon's Peiking Duck in Box Hill South. I went with the hardcore foodie food bloggers before and though omgawd Mick will love this! At $55/65 per duck for a 3 course meal. I'm THERE in a Melbourne minute with Ling & Hubby from Best Beauty Blog and also Clinique IT Girl 2013!! I'm famous by association here people.

Toss them pancakes at our plates Simon

Pickles amused by pancake throwing display

Simon is known as the duck nazi apparently and does not tolerate tardiness. We rocked up at 6pm sharp and there were already tables of people chowing their duck by then. There are only 2 sessions per night. 6 or 8pm. None of this fluffy 7 or 7.30pm bookings. Their advice was to get the duck order in asap so that we do not have to wait when the larger groups arrive. Oh yes please.. duckalicious.. bring it! Simon will come to your table and show you how to eat the peking duck pancakes. I was rather surprised that Pickles actually ate his and asked for another one. Maybe he liked the show that Simon put on next to the table. D nibbled at his "chicken". And again.. another 4 or 5 toilet trips for this one meal. Seriously. Enough already boys!

Panfried XLB Shanghai Street

A lot of people from work are surprised that I would bring the boys in for dumplings as Box Hill is closer. Well Box Hill is pretty crappy in comparison to this place on La Trobe Street and Russell. The boys get to watch them make the dumplings through a window in the restaurant. How much fun is that? I think this was after I had my hair done in Fitzroy and I told Mick.. c'mon it's Dumplings time! The dumpling making lady had told me to order Pan Fried Xiao Long Bao next time as I normally order the steamed ones. The skin is thicker to accomodate pan frying process. But yummy yum yum. Also I have to say that having gone with someone that doesn't eat pork, chicken XLB is weak in comparison. No no... please.. eat the pork.

Popula Sushi Ivanhoe

One of the strangest hole in a wall takeaway places in Ivanhoe must be Popula. It's Popula yes no R. It is indeed popular as I once rocked up to buy a sushi and sashimi plate but they said no no.. 1hour at least. I said what? It was like lost in translation divided by a sushi fridge and bar. It took several 1hour 1hour yells before I worked out that they were so behind with orders that it would take at least 1 hour if I wanted sushi. Erm no.. I was hungry and it was a Saturday.. I want sushi now lah! I ended up with sashimi pack and I can't remember what else we had for dinner. Anyway, on a weekday lunch time, they have prepared packs. The lunch pack above was $10 from memory. Delicious soft sushi rice moulded perfectly and does not fall apart. It is all done by hand and no machines here! If you live here, heck even if you don't. Seriously get yourself to Popula if you are a Japanese sushi fan. They do sushi platters for parties and they are definitely popula!

Express Banquet at Red Spice Road

QV seems to be a wind tunnel and labyrinth of abandoned shops. We were so happy when Red Spice Road opened! Finally no need to walk across Elizabeth street and uphill! This is our 3 dishes from the express banquet. For $25 per person (minimum 2) you get a choice of 3 dishes, rice and appetitsers (corn fritters). We chose Barramundi salad, Lamb curry and Tofu with Vegetables. Who would have thought the tofu would be a highly fought over dish? I was in my I am so deprived of mushrooms mode as nobody else in the family eats them (INSANE!) and my work BFF was also a mushie maniac. The barramundi salad was different and I kind of felt strange eating watermelon with rice. But I put that away in my belly too. The lamb curry sauce was great and so was the sweet potato. But the lamb was a little dry. I think I'm addicted to civilised lunches gossiping about makeup with BFF at RSR now!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

I am sorry to bore all the non-makeup readers. But I am so excited that I did not put up a Stalk my Nom in between. The reason for my excitement is because I have wanted one of these since forever. Did I say forever? Yes.. people think I exaggerate but I don't. I think it has been a lemming for one and a half years. I had been voyeuring this storage box for a long time on the interwebs. Heck I joined a few competitions that were giving away these beautiful "Kardashian makeup storage". I don't even know where I saw these first and lord knows it was not from watching Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Earlier this month, I joined in the Instagram competition hosted by TheMakeupBoxAU and you can see the picture that I had to repost. I try to avoid joining every single Instagram competition that I come across as it might annoy people who get a ton of the same pictures in their timeline. So I only selectively join the ones that I really want to win. This storage box was definitely reposted in my timeline as well so the competition was fierce! The competition ended on the 15th of April. I had my work laptop on as I had to submit something urgently that day. I looked at Instagram and was tagged that I won! I pretty much moon walk in my head and then proceeded to sms some people, post on facebook and Instagram. WOOOOHOOO! The other good news was I also submitted what I had to for work by 9pm, not too bad!. :)

The ladies so kindly sent my makeup box the next day - so happy! When I received it, D came home from childcare and said this is the garage and put his toy cars in it. Mick said this is for Mummy's makeup. D told me that I can put makeup on certain drawers but this one - and he points to one is his garage shed for his cars. I said ok... knowing that I could not fill the box fully anyway. I left him an empty drawer.

So here are before pictures. I am quite ashamed of my before .. so please do not judge and think lord Lingy what on earth, are you living with dust covered expensive makeup!?

Drawerful of odds and ends plus nail polish

Super old Dior GWP storage case Main Makeup Storage

Random bits I found gathering dust!

Also now known as Dior case of Storage Shame

Now that I am hanging my head in shame, this is the after that I completed packing yesterday! I started in the morning while getting ready for work. And quite honestly being able to see what I have made me dabble in some makeup and put on some yesterday. Here is the bottom drawer which can accomodate the widest items. I can report that Hello Darling cannot be standing in this drawer but you can put two layers on. Note to all the nail polish manufacturers, square bottles store best! Kthx!!

So the top flip top are all face products including my Real Techniques eye brush set. I also put odds and ends like my nail clippers and tweezers. Second drawer was lipsticks.. basically I have 1 or 2 in my handbag and this is the rest. Yeah.. that's it one layer of lip products so this drawer is half filled - actually I have not included my newly purchased lip butters. Next drawer is even more empty, there is one Shu Umuera cream, one YoungBlood unused and a Nars. Bad effort there Lingy... get shopping. Eyes drawer is full at the moment so I do not need any help there. Next drawer is D's garage shed so that one is a no-go zone for me. :) The last drawer is full except I could fit a second layer of Hello Darling polishes but where's the fun? It's nice to see all the colours at one go!

The Glamour Flip Top Makeup Storage box can be purchased from The Makeup Box Shop. Thank you so much for picking me as the very very lucky winner. I am really so grateful. And honestly I am going to jump up now and do a moon walk to pick my nail polish colour!

Monday, April 22, 2013

I have to confess that this is the first and only BB cream that I have tried. So I pretty much have no basis of comparison. I know BB creams have been the rage for ages - where have I been? BB, CC, DD ... the only double alphabet I am very well acquainted with is AA. My bra cup size. True story. So when I was sent the Body Shop BB Cream in the post as a care package, I jumped for joy. Woohoo!!

I have been using this a lot since I received this. You can even see this in the first picture as the cap has marks on it, serves me right for not taking pictures prior to using. The comments from my friends include, you put on makeup today, it just makes you look like you have good skin, colour suits you quite well. So people have been noticing that I have used something different. Happy dance! The thing about BB cream is that it is so easy to use, I layer it on top of the serum and blend very easily and quickly. I usually pat on some face powder at mid day but overall I did not find it too oily as this is one complaint that I have heard from other BB cream users.

Coverage of this BB cream is light to medium, I do see that it evens out my skin tone and hides any redness. But remember my weird forehead scar? You could still see a faint scar but it did not bother me. My skin felt brighter and it is light and was easy to blend by just using fingers. I had used it as if I was applying moisturiser and did not need much each time. The pump works really well and I was able to control very well the amount that I pumped each time.

The downside to this is there is only one shade. I am lucky that it works for me but if you were darker toned than me, I would swatch this in a store first. I also think that in terms of other BB cream in the market it is comparatively expensive at AUD $48.95 for 30ml. I do believe in paying more for a good product than buying a lot of cheap things that do not work. But if you are heading to Asia I can tell you that this is much cheaper in Singapore. It retails for SGD $38 so stock up while you are over there.

Price: $48.95 for 30ml I do consider this on the pricey side - but then everyone knows I am a spendthrift on skincare and makeup but tell me what you think.

Purpose: I found it worked very well for me in terms of the colour shade and coverage. It is just easy to use and blended with just my fingers. It took no time at all and people did notice that I was wearing something. They also commented that it looks like I was wearing makeup or I had good skin. WOOHOO! I hope you can see the picture on the right after I had blended in the BB cream, the blue-ish veins were evened out and made it look smoother.

Friday, April 19, 2013

I am a creature of routine so being on holiday throws me off. But the best thing about being in Singapore is tasty food at good prices (some places) available at anytime of the day that you want it. Well maybe not at all hours unlike Hong Kong. I have so much to blog but so little time. So to get back into routine of Stalking posts, I gotta do one big Nom brag post. Hold on tight..

One thing I have found about being in Singapore.. is that they ALWAYS bring the bill to the males. Dude my Mum's credit card was in the folder, why did you hand it to the only male on the table?? Another thing I realised is that if you are a tourist, nobody will let you pay in Singapore. This is one of the lovely meals that we had in Singapore that my friend suggested. The restaurant has shut down - sorry peeps. But to nom brag.. it was a fusion Euro-SEAsian place. Truffle Mac and Cheese.. for the win!

Bosses Yummies!

Another friend of mine A met us at Vivo City Bosses. The star dish of the restaurant were the salted egg yolk custard buns called Liu Sha Bao. I call them squirty molten lava buns. I managed to squirt custard everywhere and create so much mess. It was embarrassing but lord it tasted good. We also had a beautiful vegetarian tofu dish bottom left picture - which doesn't do justice to it. And on the bottom right is yummy pork belly. Mick said he could just sit and eat that one dish.

Char Kway Teow is Mick's favourite Singaporean hawker food and for me I would probably pick Roti Prata as it is so expensive to have a roti prata here. Yes! Roti Prata for breakfast.. that's the schizzle. The two pictures on the right were from Wisma Food Court. You just cannot get decent oyster omelette in Melbourne. I tried the one at Taiwan cafe and it was blah.

Imperial Treasure Dim Sum

Prawn Chee Cheong Fun

Can someone say DIM SUMMM (or to Aussies Yum Cha)?? On weekends most Chinese restaurants are booked out and you definitely have to call up and book a table. The highly acclaimed Tim Ho Wan had not opened yet when we were there. We went to Imperial Treasure at Great World City twice in 2 days. Yeappp.. that's how much we love it. The Siew Yoke (roast pork) is amazing and crisp and is very lean without being dry. I have not had pickled ginger with century eggs in years so I had to order it. Mick was like ??? and did not like it one bit. Excuse those Siew Mai and Beef Ball pictures that are missing a ball. I was feeding Pickles and forgot to take pictures before eating. The prawn Cheong Fun looked yummy... I am not sure as D ate one entire plate by himself. Sigh..

Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah

My Uncle waited 1.5hrs for Tau Sar Piah .. 1 and a half hours people! The box of goodies was still hot when I was eating. These are pastries filled with green bean pastes and there are two varieties - sweet and a salty version. My personal favourite is the salty. Heck to the yes... now where to find this in Melbourne? :( Get yourself to 639 Balestier Rd which is near Thomson Medical Centre. Do not get distracted by the other Tau Sar Piah stores along that road.

Controversial Durian puffs

You either hate or love durian. There is no in between. Lucky for me I love it.... these are what I believe to be choux pastries filled with durian paste. There were soft, yummy and fresh... and maybe smelly too. I can sense your nausea right now so I shall stop! LOL

Ball Food

I gotta add a ball food right? I love Takoyaki octupus balls so much! This was from the food court in Ion and we had our balls with bubble tea. Yum Yummmm..

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

This holiday sounds epic right? It's like a perpetual stalk fest. I have not even talked about the tourist activities or food yet!

What does one do when on holiday in Singapore? We go to shops. And more shops. Hell yeah there's a tunnel linking two buildings, Singapore will put shops in there.

We went to Marina Bay Sands one day because Mick had never been. I wanted to show him the faux Venice, ours is like a poor man's version and it's hilarious. Marina Bay Sands had a special event on during Earth Hour. Typical of Asia, let's have a light and water show to talk about Earth Hour!! You only go to Marina Bay Sands if you want one thing - repeat after me - high end luxury boutiques. Oh yeah now we are talking.

The conversation went like this. Mick: Let's go to LV. Me: No it's ok. We walk past LV again at another level. Me: Let's go to LV. Mick: I TOLD YOU TO GO EARLIER! I am glad we entered through the bottom basement level because check this out!

LV Maison Island Singapore

Is it Louis Vuitton boutique or is it an art gallery? Oh right, let's just put art in here. Oh wait multi levels Louis Vuitton? Get out.. let's just put a lot of amazing lights here.

ZOMG like ZOMG

I had my eye on a pair of LV flat shoes for ages... It had embossed LV monogram and was not offensive in terms of price tag or the monogram design. When on holiday right? BUY BUY BUY. Anyway, Mick said he would buy this for me. But meanwhile I spy a gorgeous pair of heels. It was just crying out to be tried.. hey it's size 37. That's my size!! I have to say that I have never received better customer service from a LV store and I have to give props to Stefanie who whispered the price of the Sofia Coppola bag that I was eyeing. Spared me the embarrassment of WTFFFF out loud!

So like I own them flats!

I had a very good time even waiting for confirmation on whether LV Ion would hold onto this shoe for me. I had to go a size down to 36 as per adviced - which of course I didn't listen at first. We were offered drinks at LV. GET OUT! I usually get a slanty eye glance at Chanel Melbourne at best followed by we don't have you size while they stare blankly at me. We were sipping hot green tea while they wait to receive confirmation about stock at Ion.

So here is Orchard Ion ... in full glory... I actually really really like this place. Because there is a variety of FOOD, high end and low end shops. It has everything.. and is linked to everywhere else. Like what else do you want people! You never have to leave this building ever. And a bit of history about Ion. There was nothing there. It was a train station facade and nothing else but empty land and grass.

Orchard Ion

Opposite Orchard Ion is a historical icon called Tangs. Seriously get yourself to Tangs Beauty Hall, it is amazing. Check what is at the front door.

Hello beautiful Tom Ford Beauty Counters

There isn't just one Tom Ford Counter... there are MANY. On the left side of the above picture are the Tom Ford couture perfumes. And the makeup items are on the right. I went with a list of things to buy for someone.. perfume, lipstick.. It felt very fun going up and saying I want this and that but I am not buying today. I am coming back this week, put it aside for me please.

I went back another day with Pickles who wanted to come with me and Mum. Pickles thought he was in heaven being with the girls and trying out makeup. He told Mick later when he went home that we drew on the back of his hand. Everyone was swooning over him as you can expect.

Mum and Pickles being pretty

And these are the Tom Ford items that I bought.. althought the Violet Fatale lipstick was not for me. I also bought a Tom Ford Noir de Noir perfume that my work BFF had on her list which is SGD$320 for 50ml. Talk about luxury and opulent.

Naked Coral and Violet Fatale

Oh haiii pretttyyy

Let me know if you are already sick of the holiday pictures! Because I have a lot more.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Did you miss the Claw? I did.. I had really bad chipped nails but they seem to have got better recently.
For this Claw, I went with a new colour that I bought. Well not that recently but you know... chipped nails :( I'm skipping holiday haul for now - next one I promise!

And I even took the Claw out of the house. Yeappp.. not featuring my front yard this time. We went outside to 2 different places. One was Flower Temple in QV and the other was at the Country Dahlia farm at Winchelsea (out Geelong direction). I will talk more about the dahlia farm on Stalk my Weekend if I can get a chance to blog about it. So many topics, so little time! The picture above is from the dahlia farm. How pretty are dahlias! And what a romantic picture!

Flower Temple Sneaky Claw

Quick point and shoot before someone sees

I used Manicare Beginning to End as base and top coat which was gifted to me. Now I might be going blind but I cannot for the life of me find Carousel on Hello Darling's website. Someone tell me I am blind because this is a very cute colour. It is pretty fluffy pink with gold highlights. I hope you can see this in the bottle picture on the left.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Ok so here's one for the fashion folks as requested. I bought 3 pieces from Dorothy Perkins in Singapore.

One was the bird necklace that D picked for me. And I bought a dress and a top. I have to declare that my Mum has the same dress, except in a smaller size. Darn her. The problem with going to a tropical hot and humid island is that you come back with all these lovely Summer items. You arrive back and become unmotivated to unpack. Dude, it's cold. I don't want to look at thin slinky dresses. Unfortunately, this dress will be put away until Summer. :(

I pretty much wore the same 3 dresses while in Singapore and this is a great score. It's loose, cool-ish and easy to wear. I am sorry that I look like an "Auntie" going to the market with that hair. It is hot, very hot and humid, I just wanted my hair off my neck. Did I say HOT?

Font and Back

Please ignore the scar on my forehead as well. When on holiday I did not bother with makeup. I do not think there is anything worse than makeup in the humidity. Also a lesson about Singaporean friends, they will point it out to you and ask what happened to your forehead. And don't take offence because they ask as they care. Just be prepared for, "what happened to your head? Did you burn yourself with a straightener?"

Boys eating their tarts

I also bought this top because they were giving out vouchers and I think I was $2 short of a discount and tops were 20% off. It actually has a cut out at the back, nothing too raunchy but still. I kept my Rachel Zoe jacket on, also it has been freezing in Melbourne. Look .. coming back from Singapore, this place would be absolutely freezing.

Mandatory yellow lighting tinged OOTD bathroom shot

Do you like the funky sinks at our office bathroom? Hells to the yeah. The Dorothy Perkins top is sleeveless too.. Yet another Summer number.

Birdie Necklace Tweet Tweet

Here's the bird necklace on closeup and is a bird on both sides. It actually opens up as the feet is a hinge. Pickles has started grabbing it and saying tweet tweet. Tweet tweet to you too Pickles.

Pondering and selfies go hand in hand

I am sitting here posing and pondering my next post. I have the most lopsided face like evahs and my glasses obviously need adjusting or my face is screwy and unbalanced. Anyways, I'm pondering mmmm what should I blog next? Sorry, I might have to go back to the makeup. Have a stab, what lipstick am I wearing? The name starts with T and F and who else can charge $300 for 50ml of perfume in Melbourne? Yeap... our favourite designer once at Gucci and YSL. Now THAT was a fun shopping outing as I had a list of things to buy for other people.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

How good are Asian drug stores? You can randomly find Korean/Japanese makeup like Dolly Wink alongside European brands like Nuxe. Watson's and Guardian are everywhere in Singapore. Did I say everywhere? I always go in to have a quick browse. The aisles are always narrow in Singapore and the products always jump out and say BUY ME!!

I am including some items that I picked up for other people as they are so cute! And other items that I bought .. well just because it was so much cheaper in Singapore.

Oh Hurro Kitty!!

Who can walk past any drugstore in Asia and not buy anything branded Hello Kitty! Hurro!!!
This is the emergency medical kit for a friend. Includes Hurro Kitty bandaids (D calls them bandjades) and a Cold Pack. Zomg how cute!

Silky Girl who knew of this brand?

I thought I would pick up something cool, cheap and an "unknown" brand called Silky Girl for Vita. It was also reduced and on sale at 25% off. I picked up a lovely colour called Sugar Plum as she loves purple anything and can pull of lilac lipsticks! Turns out.. she already knows of this brand. DUH.... I was also asked to check out Silky Girl BB compact for her and to get a light yellow based beige. This is in Ivory which is the lightest shade. It says it's formulated for Asian skin though. LOL so I hope it works wonders for Vita!

Lip Butters Macaroon, Cherry Tart, Sweet Tart

I had 5 minutes before my massage appointment and what else do I browse but Watson's again. Wait wait... Buy 2 get 1 free? And Revlon Lip Butters were $15.90 each. So it's about $12 each which meant I paid $24 for these 3 lip butters. I have always wanted lip butters. I would browse on eBay and sort of never proceeded to purchase. So I grabbed these 3. I have a feeling that Macaroon is a mistake but I will live with it at $8. But is it me or does everyone love Sweet Tart?

Sunscreen a Must in Asia ok! Repeat after me

So guess who got sunburnt in Singapore at the Zoo.. yeap Mick did. He was the white caucasian tourist walking around sunburnt and all red for a week. LOL.... I should not laugh as it looked so painful. There is a massive waterplay area at the zoo. Think water slides, big fountains, small fountains spraying water, water guns and big structures that dumped down water at kids waiting below. The funny thing is, he had rubbed some sunscreen that was left on his hands after applying on the boys on his upper shoulder. There was a "M" mark left there. As we were also using the toddler sunscreen - yeah we are hopeless - I bought this cute little bottle of Nivea Toddler sunscreen. It was easy to apply and smelt great. I'm sticking to stealing the kid's small tube of sunscreen for awhile.

I hope to post some of the fashion buys soon! They may include the family purchases and not just mine. Bear with me!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Hurro! Guess what! I went on holiday without my work laptop and I could not bear looking at a computer the last 2 weeks. So I was absent from the blogging world. But I am back to grey and cold Melbourne. I call this trip my annual pilgrimage.

So stalk my back to work outfit. Country Road grey skinny work pants that I bought before I went on holiday and forgot about them as it was so hot that I would look at black pants and melt. A fantastic blue top that I scored from a shop called Fond in Great World City in Singapore. I was sent there by my Mum who said I had to go buy the same dress as her because it was so cute and cheap.

Mandatory dodgy mirror pic

I am also wearing a necklace that D picked out for me in Dorothy Perkins at Wisma Singapore. I told him that Mummy had no money to buy it. He kept saying does it fit Mummy? Do you want to buy it with hopeful little eyes. We bought it one night as he kept telling Mick about the bird necklace. So cute! So I am wearing it today even though it clashes with the work tag I wear around my neck.

Anddddd I came back to work to receive this.

HERMES!!!! SO FANCY

Before I left, work skincare/makeup BFF and I went on a rampage trying on all the Hermes perfumes at DJs. We sprayed it on cards and I quickly got confused and overwhelmed as I think the base notes are the same. So she emailed me while I was on holiday asking which one I liked. I was like erm.. I don't know! I got confused. She bought Kelly cache which by the way has an amazing twist bottle cap closure and this one. I picked the Un Jardin Apres La Mousson as I was going to buy this one at the airport to add to my ever growing stash! The smell of Mousson is more fruity like watermelon. Coincidentally she also prefers Kelly over this. Winners all around!

I will be back with more shopping hauls. Like HAULS!! Think luxury high end haul! And stalk my noms while I was on holiday. SO MUCH to blog about.Anyone else missed me?